I have a love-hate relationship with Nokia. I absolutely, hands down believe that Nokia builds the nicest mobile handsets in the world. It's unfortunate that so many of them run a needlessly antiquated operating system that takes all the fun out of using a smartphones.
At the NokiaTalk conference in Miami last month I had an opportunity to talk to Olivier Puech, who oversees sales for Nokia for all of Latin America and the Caribbean, and he acknowledged that the company was playing catch-up to Apple and handset makers using Android. He said Nokia's upcoming N8 would be “as good – not better – but as good” an experience for users as the iPhone, which is a step in the right direction.
If Nokia decides the E72 can handle an upgrade to the next version of the Symbian OS, which is supposed to be more streamline than the S60 3rd Edition the E72 now runs, then it's worth taking a look. I'll explain why.
This phone is gorgeous and the build quality superb. It just feels solid and doesn't creak like my last two Blackberrys did. The battery life on the E72 is unbelieably good. With heavy use, I didn't need to recharge for two days. The keyboard kicks ass and so does the screen. I took this phone out during the Goombay Festival and the screen stood up well to the sunlight. The clickable mini-trackpad worked well but took some getting used to. As for speed, I was on the AT&T crapfest that's known as the EDGE network, so I couldn't really take the 3G-ready E72 through its paces. But I was able to upload photos to Flickr and video to Qik fairly quickly and without a hitch. In fact, photos and video are one area where the 5-megapixel E72 – and Nokia smartphones in general – really excel.
But it all goes down from there.
Let me just say that I'm grateful to Nokia for answering my plaintive cry during the NokiaTalk conference and lending me phone to try for two weeks. But people who are used to the Blackberry will never really be happy with the E72, at least not the ones living here in the US, where there are a lot of smartphone options. Here are my suggestions to Nokia:
Make it simple. I shouldn't have to pull out a manual to figure out how to change my home screen. Actually, I could say the same thing for almost any of the E72 features. Listen, I sync almost everything to Gmail or Google Apps and it took me more than hour to find a solution to sync my calendar and contacts to the E72 – and it wasn't even on the Nokia support site. That's really inexcusable. And Ovi sync was great, but it shouldn't be the only easy option.
Less options is better. I used to own a little Psion computer, so I know more or less how to get what I need out of the E72, but most people won't and most won't care to learn. They don't need to when they can just get a Blackberry or a Palm Pre and figure it out on their own.
Get social. I use Twitter and Facebook extensively but the apps for both on S60 were awful. Ok, maybe not awful but in comparison to SocialScope on the Blackberry, Gravity looks like it was cobbled together by Cro-Magnons. You know that apps in general are important both to the user and to your bottom line, so pump up that base.
Pay attention. Nokia phones should, at a minimum, be able to do what other phones in its class can do. The E72 in particular is meant for businesspeople who type a lot and don't have a lot of time. Let the user have customizable text shortcuts. Cut down on the number of keystrokes it takes to type out a message and send it. If you're serious about courting businesspeople to your smartphones then show them you respect their time.
For now, I'm going back to my craptastic Blackberry Curve, and will wait to see if the Nokia N8 is what the company claims it will be.
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